Former Hibs ace takes charge at SPFL club as he sets his stall out after ex-Easter Road figure helps seal deal
The former Hibs midfielder was also a coach at Hearts during the beginning of his post-playing life.
Former Hibs star and Hearts coach John Rankin wants his Ayr United players to love themselves again after being named their manager until the end of the season.
Ex-Hibs duo Scott Brown and Steven Whittaker vacated their roles as head coach and assistant at the Scottish Championship club earlier this week amid poor form. They are five points outside the promotion play-off spots and seven clear of ninth, the relegation equivalent, as Rankin returns to management for the first time since guiding Hamilton Accies amid brutal financial problems.
His playing career included prominent stints at Dundee United and Hibs but his coaching career took him across the city to Hearts, where Hamilton snapped him up from, after impressive work in the Tynecastle youth set-up. He suffered relegations with Accies but also won the League One title and the club were bereft with off the pitch woe that Rankin had to deal with. He’s now keen to make his mark at Ayr after a deal put into motion by ex-Hibs sporting director and Somerset Park’s managing director Graeme Mathie.
Who is manager of Ayr United?
He told club media: “I'm delighted to be back. Delighted and delighted to be at such a club as well. As I said, the chairman's back at the club. You look at the facilities they have, the infrastructure the training pitch and the gym. I come in and straight away I'm excited. For me to be excited by that and the players to come in here to work every day they must be excited by it as well.
“So I'm buzzing to be back. I'm looking to thrive on this opportunity. I know it's short term, I know it's to the end of the season, but I look at the group of players and it excites me. The club excites me, the players excite me, and it's a case of making sure that we come together. Both the staff and the players, and get over the final hurdle, and make sure that the next six games that we can go and put on a real good show, work hard for one another and get ourselves in the position that we want to be.
“My phone rang and there was a call. It was obviously Graeme to offer me to speak to him. Instantly I was excited by the opportunity. I think it's a great club. Hugely ambitious with a great infrastructure. Straight away it met my ambitions. It was something I really wanted to proceed with.
Why John Rankin has joined Ayr United
“I know the chairman has invested a lot of his own money. He's trying to build the club up. It's a historical club. I've played here for many years. It's always been a tough place to come to. One I didn't enjoy coming to as a player because you always knew you were going to get a tough game. But again, I know we are trying to get back into the community. The AstroTurf that is just built out the back. It's a great surface that we trained on in the morning. I know it's a community based club and one that wants its football club to do well.
“I think my own strength is people skills. I like being around people and people grow and warm to me as a person. I think right now there's a lot of people struggling with confidence because of recent results. We need to build that confidence back up. Basically get inside heads which I think is another strength.
“Being able to see the best in people and make them see the best in themselves. But ultimately I think there's a dressing room of players that need to love themselves again and I'm going to help them do that. It has to be that way between now and the end of the season to try and get a successful product on the pitch. There's been a lot of good work done here before. Just continuing that good work and allowing the players to believe in themselves.”